Brengun Yakovlev Yak-1 Build in 1/72 Scale Part II

The canopy is provided in three pieces, the middle section does not fit well in the open position and will need to be replaced with a vacuform piece if you want to pose it open. A few swipes of Perfect Plastic Putty cleaned up the canopy seams. Brengun also provides clear parts for the navigation lights and landing light. I “painted” the positions with a Sharpie, then fixed the clear parts in place with superglue and buffed them out. I lost both clear pieces meant for insertion in the rudder, but I felt fortunate to get all eight of the tiny exhausts in place.

The inlet at the root of the port wing is a separate piece and quite delicate. It required a bit of filler. The horizontal tail pieces do not fit at all. The instructions call for you to remove most of the locator tabs but even the stubs don’t fit into the slots. In addition, the fairing molded onto the fuselage halves is much thicker than the tail pieces. I cut off the tabs and butt-jointed the fins in place, then reduced the thicker fuselage fairings from the underside with an Xacto knife and sanded them smooth.

I primed with Mr. Surfacer 1000 to check the seams. At this point I also drilled holes in each wing for the gear down indicators.

The obligatory paint color shot so I can remember what I used later. The undersides are a mix, the upper surface camo colors are out of the jars. I make no claims to being a VVS color expert, but these colors appear to be in the proper ranges from what I have been able to find.

I glossed the model with Testors GlossCoat and applied the kit decals using Micro Set and Micro Sol. The decals went on without any drama.

Here is the underside with an acrylic wash to pick up the surface details. The PE panels worked out in the end but are still an odd way to do things, plus an unnecessary chance to screw up. I do like the PE parts for the landing gear covers and the wheel wells are nice and deep.

Here is the finished model with all the fiddlybits in place. I used Albion tube for the pitot tube. The tip of the pitot tube is Nitenol wire, as are the radio antennas. The gear down indicators are 0.0125” wire. The sliding canopy section was replaced with a Falcon vacuform.

Summary:

The Brengun Yak-1 has some nice surface detail and builds up into a good-looking model.  The decals are great and lay down well.  However, this is not an easy kit to build.  There are several unusual engineering decisions which make assembly unnecessarily difficult, and many of the pieces are quite small.  There are flash and mold seams to deal with, but no sink marks on my example.  You will have to work to get this one together and it is a frustrating build.  If you want a high-backed Yak this is your kit, but be prepared for a fight.

Part I of the build here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2021/06/04/brengun-yakolev-yak-1-build-in-1-72-scale-part-i/